Augury
by Shiggity Shwa
Summary: Mitchell and Vala go on an extended mission to a village that still believes in the Ori, while trying to low-key define their relationship, a terrible mistake is made which leads to the village turning on them. Has established Cam x Vala.
1. Prologue

_This was my attempt to write somewhat of a spooky, relationship defining story using an ever-believing Ori village as a center for Witchcraft. It's also a sort of a Franken-story created from the leftover scraps of Inheritance an that I couldn't fit into the stories. _

_It will deal with suggestions of non-con._

Augury

Prologue

It happens because they have an abundance of free time.

Their mission is completed ahead of schedule, the villagers are more than benevolent and grateful for their military aid against a rebel faction. They're treated to a marvelous lunch outside at a long wooden table. She sits next to Mitchell, their thighs touching the entire time due to lack of space, and she tries not to notice it, to draw her mind somewhere else, but when he finally realizes the intimacy of the contact, she feels him stiffen, leg muscles growing hard against hers.

Despite finishing the mission without a hitch, they cannot gate back immediately. Seems they've accidentally stumbled upon a hallowed tradition and try as they might to explain that it would, oh, just take a minute to squish in behind the next group, the villagers claim usage of the gate for the next five hours for what they call 'spiritual cleansing'.

So they sit on the side of a hill, the sky is a beautiful blue and fluffy white clouds float by, and a nostalgic feeling curls it's way up her spine. She's first to lay back, but it's not long before he follows suit, both using their packs as pillows while tracing outlines of objects and animals in the clouds—some of which she doesn't know and has to take his word on.

But from the dense forest leading back to the village, a swarm springs up, dozens, if not hundreds of black birds blotting out the sky.

When she tenses beside him, he gives a carefree laugh, raising one of the hands bunched under his head to point at the flock, swaying and moving in unison. "They move like that to use less energy. They must've caught a thermal or something."

"If you say so."

His arm lands nearer to hers, brushing against it like his thigh the night before. The strained break as they said goodnight, him dropping his eyes to the ground, and marching away, ever the soldier. But it's her who stiffens this time, as his hand slips within hers, dry and warm, fingers sliding over her palm until finding the grooves between her fingers and clasping together.

When she wrenches her head towards him, he's still looking at the sky, but he bounces their hands on the soft ground once. "You got a different theory?"

She swallows harshly, unsure about the sudden change, the move of accepting flirtations seeded half a decade ago, but somehow his calm tempers hers, and she shifts just slightly closer, using their clump of hands to gesture to the birds, swirling in shapes not even a sore laid imagination could describe. "My mother used to read them."

"Read what?"

"Birds, well, flocking birds."

"That's a thing?"

"To her—" She turns, her cheek itching against blades of grass the color of green she'll never forget and wets her lips with a delicate swipe of her tongue. "—it was."

"What—what could she predict?" Much like her demeanor, his tone mimics hers, his eyes falling to her slightly parted lips, his hand grasping tighter as she shuffles over, further eliminating the space between them.

"All sorts of things." The chirping of birds is overpowering, even over the pattering in her chest, the verdant ground beneath her feels like it's giving away. "Good and bad."

"What—" His breath flows hot over her face, swirling against her skin like the birds in the sky. When she frees her hand of his, cupping his neck, she can feel his heart race against her. "What do you think they're saying now?"

As she opens her mouth to answer, the birds screech and his mouth covers hers, gentle, plying, playing over familiar steps, nurturing and growing until she's on her back again for a different reason.

She hasn't had sex in a field since she was young.

Expects that after the climaxes, that will be it. They'll never speak of this again, because they did something somewhat naughty according to regulations, which honestly, makes the sex that much better. Understands the unspoken bond between them that needed to occur in order to rid tension that had been stockpiling for over five years, and that the tryst will die a secret shared between them and a flock of a hundred birds.

Only, he doesn't stop.

He touches her, not at work, not inappropriately, not too strongly or with ownership as other men have once they've had her body, but gentle caresses, plucking an eyelash from her face, or zipping her jacket up so she doesn't catch cold, or tugging her hair out from where it's been caught by her collar.

Only when they're alone of course.

His caresses increase, don't become malicious or violent, but deeper, more soothing: a massage, kissing the side of her neck, making her flinch from stimulation, stimulating her other ways—quite frequently now—completely off the books of course, but they're no longer strange bedfellows as they are sleeping partners.

But still, something is missing, a piece that would make the relationship complete, and she knows it's in the verity, in admitting they're in a relationship, which has more than budded and is now sprouting. He knows she doesn't like tomatoes, she knows the brand of beer he prefers although she's never been off base with him. Never seen his home or slept with him in his own bed outside of a dedicated dorm room.

They go on missions still. Are complete professionals and are never more than a hair's width away from dying most of the time because, again, they're professionals.

There are times when he's finally makes it to her room after being bandaged up, that she simply holds him and cries. Weeps because he's become such an integral part of her life now, weeps because she may have lost her best friend that day if the team was five minutes late, weeps because neither he nor she can admit to what this relationship has tumbled into and it's more terrifying than the thought of him laying dead on a slab of stone.

There are times when she enters his room, banged up with bruises and contusions and twice with broken bones, and crawls onto the bed next to him, next to a body he keeps as rigid as the first time she felt his thigh brush hers, and she sighs, from pain, from fatigue, from exhaustions because of his inability to navigate his feelings translates into a seething rage. She doesn't blame him, because they're in the same boat, frantically trying to define each other, but casting each other overboard while trying.

Eventually he will take a heavy inhalation, his fists buried straight at his sides will unravel, his jaw will unclench, his breathing will become less staccato, and he will turn towards her, just as he did on that hillside, and gather her to him, hands playing through her hair, lips blessing any injury he can find, and he will mumble, the gritted voice from deep in this throat, variations of how relieved he is that she's okay, and how irate he is that she was injured—especially on his watch—even if the perpetrator is dead.

That is what their relationship is, comfort in the arms of one while the other is broken. Solace with another body, when one of their mind's is fragmented, the presence of the other soothing enough to forget wounds and injuries and psychological scarring all while playing off the pretense of being a team leader and a previous thief that have little to nothing in common with each other.

As different as clouds billowing by in the sky, yet as similar as birds in a flock.

And she doesn't know how to define it.


	2. Ex Caelo

Augury

Chapter 1

Ex Caelo

"What the hell happened?" Mitchell marches into the room, two guards with minimal weaponry trailing him. She doesn't stir from the bench she was directed to nearly two hours ago, her posterior definitely starting to lose most of its feeling.

He is unimpressed with her naturally, they were trying to lay low, sent on an extended four-week mission to a planet that was less than favorable in giving up the will of the Ori, even after many years had passed. She was so obedient, crouching through six hours of prostrations every morning and living in a room at the magistrate's estate because Mitchell wasn't bright enough to say they were wed—when someone flat out asked he chuckled, answered no, and then immediately grew red when he realized his folly.

She hates it here.

Always hates when she has to interact with anything dealing with the Ori. Not only is there an overbearing sense of guilt still buried within her in remembrance of the Orici, but the laws and restrictions are too encumbering, and she feels as if she can't breathe, although that could be remnants of being burned alive.

Twice.

"Vala!" Mitchell pounds his hand into the side of an iron bar, garnering her attention back. His lips are tight and his eyebrows low, masking his face in mock anger, but she knows him, and it's a façade for his worry. He doesn't have as much experience dealing with Ori believers as she does, but sometimes, late at night, he would ask to hear the story of what exactly happened, and in the low light she would stiffen because she can still feel her skin tighten, her toes trying desperately to curl away from the flames, the air in her lungs snuff out. "What did you do?"

"Oh, of course, I had to do something, did I?" Attempts to stand, but she's shackled to the bench, impeding her movements. "Couldn't have been someone else, it had to be—"

His voice drops, the hard edges of his lips soften, and he leans closer to the railing and with that mumble she enjoys so much, especially sleep laden late at night, he offers, "just tell me what happened, okay?"

Pouts at him, snubbing him, turning her face from his and tries to cross her arms which doesn't quite work.

"Princess."

He says it in that mumble, the one from the back of his throat and it gives her goosebumps from where she is situated feet away. When she chances a glance at him, he grins, and she rolls her eyes because he truly is an idiot. "This is your fault you know."

"My fault?"

"Yes, all your fault." Her second attempt to cross her arms fares no better, and she huffs in frustration.

"Well—" he elongates the word while turning from the bars, stretching out his back and stiffening when he finally bears witness to the two guards. "I would be just delighted if you told me why."

"Because you weren't smart enough to—"

"All right Ms. Malcontent—" the head guard fumbles his way into the room, he's the cousin of the magistrate and probably only received his prosperous position through nepotism. They share the same absence of a neck, and the same eyes almost squirreled away under thick cheeks. "The magistrate—" he pauses noticing Mitchell, and then flinching in retrospective surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Mitchell lazily gestures a hand to her cell. "Checking to see if she's okay."

For someone so seasoned in horrible things, he's still insanely naïve and perhaps that's what draws her to him. To the small cabin he'd been given on the outskirts of town where he doesn't have to brainstorm new ideas every night on how to keep his bedroom door locked. Where he doesn't have to worry about drunken members of parliament stumbling in.

"She is not your wife, Mitchell."

"No, but—"

"She is not your sister."

"God, no."

"She is not your mother or cousin or daughter."

"I get the point."

"Then see yourself out of these chambers."

For the two seconds she believes he won't move, he doesn't, but then he continues not moving. Her eyes scrabble away from the head guard's face, and find Mitchell's, and he's waiting. Waiting for a sign, a signal. Should he leave? Come back for her later? Should he stay and become arrested as well?

He's team leader, even though there are only two of the on this mission, he's team leader and should be making the calls, but she knows him, his attitude, his loyalty, and he won't leave without her if given the choice. Reluctantly, knowing the harm that is coming her way, she blinks once, allowing her head to fall in their incognito form of communication.

His lips press white, before he pivots on his heel, leaving the prison.

The magistrate takes Mitchell's place shortly after he departs. The room grows smaller and thinner with four men inside, four men not on her side, and she ignores the palpitations of her heart.

"You may leave us." The magistrate directs the lowly guards, who offer a respectful nod, before exiting the room. He holds his hand out to his cousin, flat palmed, and waits in a tense silence until the key to the iron cell and her shackles is placed within.

"Thank you." His words are curtailed as he nods to the door, his cousin swallows the lump in his throat and has the audacity to glance back at her with saddened eyes, before exiting the room.

"Oh Vala, my dear." He plugs the keyhole, and there's a resonating clunk as the old iron door screeches open. "You've made a grand mistake."

"Not as grand as you will if you take a step into this room." Her voice is lilted, offered in a childlike sing-song tone with an innocent tilt of her head.

He chuckles at her threat, waving the key as enticement. "You should have accepted my advances."

"I think your wife would have seen that as a problem."

"My wife is overtly aware of the power I hold not only in this town, but with our true leaders, the Ori—" she rolls her eyes at his mention of the dead religion, aware of how close he's drawing "—I do as a please."

"That's a dangerous thing for any man to be doing." Turns her head away from him as he approaches, she can already smell his stench, sweat soaked into cotton garments and unclean flesh. Briefly feels pity for his wife, who she's only seen in passing despite living on the estate.

His hand suddenly wrenches her head forward, fingers digging into her chin, tightening on her throat. His eyes are slits, green and glaring and dangerous. He still has bits of boar speckled in his beard. "I do what I please, with whom I please."

Wants to respond that he cannot and will not do what he wants with her, but his hand placement has made speaking a tad difficult, so she reverts to her backup plan, and instead spits directly on his face.

It works.

He releases her, recoiling in disgust, but as she takes in a full breath, he hits her in the face, not a backhand, but a well aimed punch that slightly disorientates her.

Only slightly.

While she hangs her head, he looms over her, creeping closer, encroaching on her again, spewing all brands of hateful words from his mouth. "If you ever dare to—"

When he steps on the perfect mark, his spittle landing in her hair from her still bent head as he berates her for not being attracted to his noxious smell and rage-fueled body, she darts up as much as she can, smacking her head into the front of his. As the blood spills from his nose, she crosses her arms, each hand with a chain digging deeply at the skin where his neck should be.

And she growls in his ear, "I believe that in order to save your own worthless life, you'll be wanting to undo these shackles now."


	3. Ex Avibus

_A/N: Just a heads up that this is a flashback chapter_

Augury

Chapter 2

Ex Avibus

The second day of being separated, of living in the magistrate's house and locking her door—only for it to become unlocked—she seeks him out in the woods. Travels to the cabin bequeathed to him as a single able-bodied man. A small one room building constructed out of logs with a beautiful stone hearth and a kitchen with one counter and one basin. When crossing the threshold as he holds the door for her, she tries to ignore her inner monologue stating that he invited her to this random cabin, before his true home back on Earth.

"I should probably tell you I have no idea what I'm doing." He dizzies around in the kitchen, pulling out random spices, some for tea, some for stews and other hardier meals, and slapping them on the small counter. "I've only ever cooked meat on a barbeque, never had to use a cauldron before."

Her hand slides across his broad back, the muscles tenser than usual underneath the flimsy garb of a backwards Ori worshiping village, earth-toned cotton with itchy ropy bits strewn throughout. "These are for tea—" slides back three small canisters with dry leaves "—these are for stews or meats."

She pulls forward the remaining containers. "And it's called a pot not a cauldron."

"Looks like a cauldron to me, Princess." His attitude is argumentative, debating, but his arm slings around her hips.

"Oh, it is a cauldron." She removes the lid with a poker from beside the hearth and glances into the brown bubbling liquid. It actually doesn't smell awful. "But that's a forbidden word here."

"All right?" With his question he narrows his eyes, and when she flexes her fingers, grabbing air, motioning for the herbs he hands her the first. "Why's that?"

She smells the herb, after crushing it between her fingers, the fragrance smelling slightly clary, and adds two pinches to the pot. "Because witches use cauldrons—"

"—and witchcraft will get you killed."

"No, Darling." She turns, replacing the canister and grasping his chin between her fingers to kiss him on the lips. Despite not having any of his daily toiletries, he still tastes the same. "Witchcraft will get you burned at the stake."

* * *

After one week, the magistrate removes the locks from her bedroom door completely, citing a faulty mechanism and that he doesn't want her to get unceremoniously locked within the chamber if the house catches ablaze.

Before she goes to sleep that night, she drags the ornate dresser over so that the corner is in line the wall, hitching the door so it will not open more than an inch. It's less than an hour after she's snuffed out the candle beside her bed, when the handle of the door turns, and it creaks until smacking into place. Then resets and smacks into place several more times before incensed muttering can be heard and the door slams closed again.

She doesn't sleep for the rest of the night.

* * *

At twelve days in, the magistrate assaults her for the first time, in broad daylight in the courtyard of the estate as she hangs the laundry to dry on the line—one of her household duties that ensures her 'safe' dwelling. He grabs her from behind, his hands expertly collecting the bounty of her dress, and while his hands remain on her for some time as she struggles, she manages to stomp a heel into his foot and scurry to the other side of the line, her hand gripping the washing board for a weapon.

He only sniggers, promising it will only be worse if she doesn't submit.

She doesn't.

When he leaves, cursing again, plotting to consume her body, she thinks about Mitchell in the silent cabin and for once she doesn't yearn for him.

* * *

At fifteen days, she plans to tell him. To pull the plug and beg for them to go home, because if the threat of violence against her daily isn't enough, the nightmares that plague her when she does get sleep are unhinging her. Faces of fire masticating her very unpregnant body empty of an Orici, creeping into her room and setting it aflame. Chortling as she burns up, unable to open the door being blocked by the dresser of her own device.

But he kisses her, and his relaxation becomes her own. His serenity of a one room cabin blankets her in the same comfort his arms do as they stroke over her back or thigh. Knows living in solitude is driving him mad as well. Sure, they catch glimpses of each other in the village square, trading, bartering, shopping.

And she hates him for not saying she was his wife.

Hates him a little more because of how much it stings her.

* * *

At eighteen days, the magistrate removes the dresser from her room.

She compromises by shifting her bed before the door.

* * *

At nineteen days he chastises her in public, taking care that a crowd overhears him speak of how it is insolent behavior to rearrange the furniture of a host. Not meant to embarrass or demean her in any manner but meant to secure himself an unlocked and opened bedroom door waiting for him that night.

During her personal hours, she detours from the village square along a river that runs near his cabin. Some of the older gentlemen and the truer husbands fish here to feed their families, or to use to barter for other items. She's brought a burlap satchel and is slowly collecting rocks.

Mitchell is in the distance, fishing, doing a fair job with two large fish hanging from the hooks of his pack. He grins at her, setting his gear aside and jogging to greet her, when she doesn't copy his mirth, his erases from his face.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing." Her answer is quick, a distraction as she tries to ensure all the areas where the magistrate has clamped too hard, refusing to let her walk away, are covered.

"Are you sure? I haven't seen you in a while until today—"

She continues to collect rocks.

"—that magistrate really tore you a new one. Did—"

Grabs handfuls of slimy pebbles, tossing them into the satchel without warrant.

"—you have to try not to get him angry, the mission's so close to being over, and—"

Her sack drops to the ground with a thud, and she stands perfectly straight before him, trying to slow her heart again for different reasons, trying to redirect it from being broken. "That's all that matters, right? That the precious mission is a success?"

He stares at her for less than a second before something switches on in him, before her inherent dangers become his own.

"Hey."

He attempts to touch her arm, but she wrenches it away, her feet slipping on the pebbled riverbed. His arms are quick to snatch her up, but she fights against him because she's so used to fighting now.

"Hey. Hey. Vala—" tries to cup her face and she pushes him off, phantom struggles even after he's almost a foot away. "What happened? What's wrong?"

She pants, chest heaving rapidly against the tightness of her bodice and she feels as if she's suffocating. He's never made her feel like this before.

His eyes trail over her to the toppled bag of stones bleeding back into the river with various cadenced plunks. "What are all the rocks for?"

Wants to tell him that they're for two separate reasons, for two separate stockings. One to hang on the nob of her lockless door to chitter and alert her of any intruder, and one to be tied off and buried beneath her pillow because if his hands dare to touch her, she will bash his face in.

But she doesn't utter a word, just stares at a man she once sought out for comfort, for solace, for protection, and still wants it, still craves it, for him to reach for her hand right now, and direct her back to the cabin, to call off the mission and sneak back through the gate where she can cry at her failure in bed beside him while his entire body seizes with malice for the magistrate and he strokes her hair, whispering that it's worth it because she's safe.

But he doesn't see that because he cannot define their relationship into these basic needs, cannot read the mask on her face as her lips quirk into just a slight smile and she hefts the rocks over her shoulder to return to the mission because it comes first with him. Even when she falls asleep at his cabin, on the horrible low class bed and starts awake suddenly with the taste of smoke in her mouth, and he prods her on what happened, what her dreams are about, what it felt like, and sometimes all she can do is cry because he doesn't know her at all.

Perhaps clutching to him the way that she does is just masking some other problem she's not willing to validate.

Perhaps a social comfort is all it is.

Perhaps it's just sex after all.

"We're been here for almost twenty days, and you haven't noticed."

"Noticed what?"

She turns, waddling precariously over the riverbed with the weight of the rocks, and hears his feet scramble over, clacking stones, trying to follow her. "Vala, noticed what?"

Allows him one last moment, because tonight she is either going to kill the magistrate or be his sacrifice, all because the man who made her feel so good happens to be her team leader and the status of the mission must come first.

"That there are no birds here at all." His irises twitch over her, knowing something is amiss, and desperately trying to seek what she means, what her code translates too, but they've never been speaking the same language.

Her eyes cycle to the overcast gray sky, empty of wings and songs. "What do you think that means?"


	4. Ex Tripudiis

Augury

Chapter 3

Ex Tripudiis

Once the manacles are removed, she's able to escape from the jail quite easily. Is so accustomed to avoiding cameras and several overbearing armed guards, that she can just slink by in the shadows of a massive corridor, her head held down to shield her the bruise no doubt forming on her face from the feeling of tightness in her jaw, and fan her peasant's dress to disguise areas dotted with the magistrate's blood.

Once outside and across the town courtyard, she starts increase her gait in the direction towards his cabin, it's about a ten-minute walk and rather secluded once the cobblestone walkway gives away to a dirt path. Her feet have ached constantly since arriving and she misses her combat boots that offered protection against the climate, sharp rocks and sticks, and the uneven ground. Instead her shoes are a little more than tanned leather strapped together with sinew laces and constantly threaten to fall off her feet.

The coolness of the cobblestones fades out into hard soil and she speeds off, stretching her legs as wide as they can go within the confines of her dress, bounding towards the cabin with grey smoke billowing out the chimney until her chest seizes from lack of air.

Pants all the way to his door. Slamming a fist against the thick wood, and then doubling over, trying to calm her breathing. Is about to slam her fists again when the door opens.

"Hey—what happened?" He's got her under the arms before she knows what's happening, directing her inside the house and to a horribly uncomfortable wooden couch.

"We—need to—leave."

He brushes the hair away from her face, tilting her head and guiding her arms up. "Just take it easy."

"Mitchell—we need—"

His thumb skims over the tender area on her jaw, and when she attempts to flinch away, he holds her still. "Hey what—"

"Leave. Now."

"No." He holds her head still while he examines the injury, pressing his thumb into the area. "What happened?"

"I will explain—"

"Explain now. Who—"

Snaps his hands away from her face. Large hands that weigh hers down. Strong fingers like the magistrate's, that if he sought to, he could very easily harm her. But he allows her to seize the conversation, the attention away from her injury. She quells the rage brewing onto his face and igniting his skin, the anger fueled by her decisions, her inability to complete a mission, by maneuvering her thumbs delicately over the back of his palms.

By staring him straight in the eyes and although they're not good at defining whatever this is—whatever they have accidentally stumbled into while deciphering round fluffy clouds that only mean rain is coming—they're good at reading between the lines, at flipping over the cards and interpreting what the revealed cursed image means, at watching a flock of birds scale over an entire sky like a swarm of locusts and finding good fortune in the hoard of harbingers.

He embraces her gently, like the caress of her thumb. Tugs her forward she tips into him as he supports her. His lips move in whispers against her forehead. "We need to leave right now?"

"Right now."

They manage to send out their distress call, she communicates with the SGC through a very garbled walkie-talkie set, while he retrieves a glass of water for her, and holds a cold cloth to the side of her face. He sits on the arm of the couch—how the position is comfortable, she doesn't know—stroking her hair while she leans into his lap, explaining to Harriman about their need for a quick getaway.

Reinforcements are promised within the hour.

When the call ends, they remain in the same position, his hand still stroking her hair. "The magistrate hurt you?"

Although it's a question, he speaks the words as if he already knows they're a fact.

Didn't inform him because she didn't want to jeopardize the mission of offering clueless villagers a way out, of helping a backwards society still worshiping a religion she wishes she could forget, but there's really no point in hiding anymore. "Yes."

His hand pauses for only a split second, and if he hadn't done this so much lately, she wouldn't have noticed. "How many times?"

Stares out at his small kitchen, the makeshift fire in the hearth, the smell of a stew of some sort. Concentrates on his thumb kneading into the back of her neck, then to the side, soothing the cords that were clamped moments ago. "Several."

His hand withdraws and his legs stiffen beneath her.

"Mitchell?" Arches her head up to view his expression and finds it simply not there. A stoic face, which is frightening in its own right. Her hands cup the sides of his face, draw him out of the vendetta he's planning, the vindication she hasn't asked for, but he would be more than happy to deliver. "Listen to me, Darling." When his eyes cycle to meet hers she grins softly at him. "We need to get to the gate because we might not—"

Aggressive pounding at his front door interrupts her.


	5. Ex Quadrupedibus

Augury

Chapter 4

Ex Quadrupedibus

They take her away.

In fact, they drag her away.

The magistrate—who is no longer red-faced from lack of oxygen from her finely placed manacle chains around his neck, but is now red-faced from her unwavering spirit and gall, her need to carry on an illicit affair as a woman in a religious town with a man she arrived with who didn't have enough forethought to introduce her has his wife—is spewing out charges of witchcraft.

This, she doesn't understand.

When she turns over her shoulder to hopefully find Mitchell in the throng of villagers all up in arms, she can't. At first she thinks it's because part of her is panicking and preoccupied with wrenching her arms away from her captures.

Then she realizes it's because he's not there.

The mob drags her back to the village square where she's tossed onto a familiar bench. She does her very best to try and scramble away, her and these Ori benches don't mix well, but the guards restrain her, sets of hands on her unkindly, hinderingly, slamming her back down as the magistrate continues to declare her crimes.

"—and in so much as she reeks of lust."

"Oh please, if anyone here reeks, it's you." The villagers actively boo her, hiss at her, scream horrible words. Rocks start to tick and tumble by at her feet.

"—she has several times tried to woo me from my beautiful and pious wife. A man of less caliber would have fallen for her wiles, but I adhere to the will of the Ori—"

The crowd cheers agreeing with him, their support only strengthening him as he rolls up the scroll he was reading from, which has absolutely nothing written on it, and tosses it to the side. "It is your magistrate's decree that Ms. Malcontent—"

"—It's Mal Doran, you idiot—"

"Receive a lash for each of the days she's infected our village—"

Does the math. They've almost been here three weeks.

"Oh."

"—plus, one for each evil quip she's spat from her mouth—"

Well he could practically say any number because most of the dialogue out of her mouth is a double entendre.

"—finally, we will rid ourselves of this plague through the holy means of the Ori."

"No."

"She shall be cleansed with fire."

Her first thought is 'not again', but her second thought, the remembrance of her body turning into a husk, the confusion of waking again, the phantom pains she still wakes with, the random bouts of coughing and sudden stench of burning flesh quickly overpowers any other thoughts in her mind.

"No!"

She bolts up from the bench, able to evade the first few guards by weaving around them, only to be caught by a foot on the train of her dress sending her crashing to the ground. The magistrate chortles at her foolishness, and the crowd echoes in empty laughter. She claws at the ground, then at a guard as two men hook their arms beneath her, to raise her kicking in the air.

They spin her away from the villagers before plucking at the strings stitching her dress together, she struggles as the material falls loose, exposing her back. She fights, screams, bites at anyone she can, but the guards force her forward to lay over the bench.

As the magistrate rounds to the front, the sound of his belt slipping through his pants rungs, and then whacking menacingly in his cupped hand is interrupted by the anachronistic sound of a gun firing, then quickly by the thud of a body hitting the ground.

The guards loosen their hold on her arms, and she's able to wrench her head around enough to see Mitchell aiming his side arm at the guards, his P90 dangling from his side. In a completely emotionless voice he demands, "let her go."

They do.

Stunned into a silence, she pops up and hurries through the crowd, one of her hands clutching at the back of her dress, trying to force the fabric to stay together. By the time she meets him, he's shrugged off his BDU jacket, obviously something he had stashed away with the weapons she also didn't know about, and hands it to her.

She zips up the jacket just as her dress starts to sag, blood and mud stained, frayed ends dragging over the ground. He hands her the sidearm, returning the P90 to his hands. "We're going to your gate. It wouldn't be smart to follow us."

As they turn to leave, him hovering close to her, never drawing his eyes away from the crowd, a young man, not a teenager, but not as old as she or Mitchell speaks, "by lusting after a woman, you have already committed adultery in your heart."

"Yeah, okay." Mitchell places a hand on her back directing her forward, and through the thick material of the jacket, through the burlap fabric of her disintegrating dress, she can feel the warmth.

The young man steps out of the crowd, his fists held tightly at his side, and immediately Mitchell directs her behind him. "You are no better than her. You will both be equally punished—"

"Well—" Mitchell cocks the P90 keeping the young man in place "—the Ori are dead, and your magistrate was a horndog. Everyone's living in glass houses out here and tossing way too many stones around."


	6. Ex Dīrīs

Augury

Chapter 5

Ex Dīrīs

Getting to the gate is easy after that.

Getting away from everything is not.

Once back at the SGC, they're ferried in separate directions. Nurses tug them away from each other, and they're not cliched enough to reach out to each other, to skim the tips of their fingers one final time before being wrenched apart as star-crossed lovers.

Part of her wishes they were, though.

She sits in blue scrubs, her legs hanging off the side of the cot, bouncing a bit in the air, watching the beeping numbers increase on the monitor they've attached her to. Dr. Lam appears after a brief moment, her face not holding the usual indifference she carries when dealing with any SG-1 member.

They swab her mouth, sealing away the large cotton pike. Blood is drawn from the bend of her arm—three vials she never sees again. The tear fashioned where her ear attaches to her head is frozen, disinfected, and stitched together with precision rivaling a machine's. An x-ray is taken of her cheek finding everything just very swollen.

"I hate to say this in these situations, but you're lucky." Dr. Lam tosses the x-ray slide up onto a square lamp which shows the contortions of her bones. She clicks off her pen and traces an area. "An inch up and he would've crushed your eye socket."

Wants to ask what 'these situations' pertain of, but fear of already knowing the answer kills the question. Instead she nods reservedly.

There are numerous other cuts and bruises around her arms, her thighs, her ribs, none unlucky enough to draw medical attention, only the recommendation of ice packs, keeping any lacerations clean, and a minimum of three days grounded.

After Dr. Lam gives her a bottle of pain relievers, has her sign a contract stating a list of her injuries not limited to dehydrated and malnourished, she is dismissed to two levels up to the psychiatrist. When she leaves the medical bay, she lets her body walk with her head hanging back, trying to scan the other cots for any signs of Mitchell.

She finds none.

The psychiatrist sits her in a dark room with a moving picture depicting a constant waterfall, accompanied by the sound of running water. Immediately she announces, "I have to pee."

"Our session is only twenty minutes," the doctor, who has the comfier chair, one that doesn't dig into the back of his bruised thighs, tosses out his hand like he's trying to pass the conversation to her. When she doesn't pick it up, he starts, "It was a long mission this time, you were gone for twenty-three days."

"Twenty."

"Colonel Mitchell said you took most of the trauma, is that true?"

She fidgets in her chair, crossing her legs like a small child. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"Why is that?"

"Because Mitchell didn't introduce me as his wife when we got there, so I became a grab bag of sorts for the village's magistrate." Still bouncing, she exchanges her legs shimmying her hips a bit to get her bladder to settle, but the waterfall, the non-existent waterfall noise drowns out the majority of the conversation.

"So you blame Colonel Mitchell then?"

"Not at all, I'm sure this folly has taught him to think ahead instead of in retrospect." Can't blame him, because she didn't want to masquerade as husband and wife either. They're trysts started happening less than a few months ago, and both of them seem frightened by the amount they mean to each other now. At the rate their friendly little bumps are growing more frequent, more comfortable, the added responsibility of being a fake wife to a man she already wants to have sex with during missions when she explicitly cannot, is too murky a water for even her to wade through.

"Both Colonel Mitchell and Dr. Lam said you'd suffered some abuse from a man."

"Yes."

"A man Colonel Mitchell killed without warrant disclosing the mission and making it mandatory for you to flee."

"Well, I was just about to receive well over a hundred lashes in front of the entire village, so I'm not going to particularly blame Colonel Mitchell for that either."

"And being unable to place the blame, to confront your attacker, how does that make you feel?"

"Like I need to urinate." She stands, tiring of the questions, the prods, the cold indifference at traumatic events, but most importantly, the sound of rushing water. "I won't be coming back."

Has a real shower, a true genuine shower, for the first time in twenty days.

The people of the village, even the magistrate, didn't believe in bathing often. Cameron gave her one of the buckets from his kitchen for collecting water, and she was able to sponge the grime from her skin at least once a day, but it doesn't compare to the lovely warm stream of water massaging at her back, curling down her legs, soaking into her hair. She washes her hair twice, just to make sure it's fully clean, and changes into her ready laid pajamas of a black camisole and soft silky pants that feel incredible against her freshly shaven legs.

She pulls on an SGC sweater, but leaves the zipper undone, and out of habit, walks down to Daniel's office finding it not only empty, but locked, before realizing Dr. Lam mentioned he'd gone out on a mission with Teal'c.

Despite the day, she finds herself wide awake, but on edge, anxious of privates who have to brush by her in crowded hallways for the shift change. Finds herself lonely, and in that loneliness she breeds paranoia. The burning flames so close again, overtaking as she scratches at her arm, trying to rid it of ashing skin.

"Hey." His voice makes her jump sideways into the shadows of the corridor, her back laying flat against the wall, a hand over her chest.

"Sorry, Princess." The hand reaching for her stutters then falls from the air as he returns it to the pocket of his sweats. "You just looked lost."

"I—I—" She notices the bright white bandage across his eyebrow, and the retort is lost as she stands on her tippy toes, brushing her index finger over his injury. "What happened?"

"Not important—" he shifts beside her as more privates scramble by "—I wanted to ask you—"

"I don't remember you getting hurt." She reaches for the bandages again, but the hallway is growing exceedingly crowded with privates going to lunch, to different stations, going to their dorms, or running emergency drills.

Calmly, he collects her hand before she touches his face again and holds it loosely at his side. "It's too crowded here. Let's go."


	7. Epilogue

Augury

Epilogue

Assumed when he said 'go' that he would most likely walk her to her dorm room door, and after a tense but brief silence, would separate for the night. Then sometime in the early hours of the morning, he would call her room to wake her and remind her to take her pain medication and ice her cheek again.

But instead he walks her right out of the SGC, to his car named after some breed of horse, and drives her away.

She's in such awe, watching the mountain she's been under for years now disappear behind them, and embracing the swirl of city lights flashing against a pitch-black sky. He doesn't stop until he pulls into a driveway of a small cottage. It's not on the outskirts of the village, he has close neighbors, and a fenced in backyard, and a strange little old man figurine in his front garden.

When he opens the passenger's door for her and finds her staring he clarifies, "it's a gnome."

His keys crunch in the door and he opens it, flipping on a light, before allowing her entrance first. There are no stairs, but a brown wood flooring that gleams under the bright lights. Most of the walls are blue, and she can only see a couch and a television from the entrance, and the hatching on the window of the back door.

"You hungry?" Asks as he tosses the keys onto a table also holding a water bottle, a half dead plant, and a pile of letters.

"No." She spins, taking in the room, old airplane and movie posters, family photos, handwritten cards pinned to a board.

When she stops, he's sitting on the couch, a shiny black one plump with cushions and looks to be even more comfortable than her bed. Her face must show her wariness, express that she's not entirely at ease because he states, "I brought you here so you could be as far away from there as I could take you."

She takes a step closer to him, standing nearly before him, one of her hands grazes the knee from his leg folding over the other.

"I thought maybe you would talk to me if I did."

She leans in, pressing her lips to his, her breasts pushing against his thigh as she turns his head, and flutters a finger over the bandage again. "Tell me how."

"When they took you, I fought back." His hand slips inside of hers and he drops his knee to pull her fully into his lap, then slides her sweater from her shoulders, his lips diving to the bared skin. "They got a few good hits in."

She shivers, hitching herself up onto his lap, his arousal evident through just a few thin layers of fabric. When her fingers skim his hairline, his lips pause at her collarbone, directing her hand to the bandage. "Some guy hit me with a log stacked up beside the fireplace. Another two stomped me when I fell."

Pulls his face to hers, nuzzling, ignoring the flareup of her own injuries, attempting to get him to stop talking, because as much as she was curious, she doesn't need to hear anymore.

"I got up and fought." His breath is hot against the swells of her breasts as he hands scurry underneath her shirt, pull at the ties to her pants, and he leans her backwards into the couch, pouring kisses over her stomach as he excavates it. "I had to get to you."

* * *

Jolts awake with an all too familiar nightmare galloping around in her head. Dozens of bird carcasses littering the floor, all being masticated in thick licking flames, the same that broiled and blistered her skin, that rotted her out in less than two minutes.

She's on his couch, with the heavy rotation of the ceiling fan clicking away above them. The room is dark and she's cold. Her bare legs split between his as he cradles her from behind. Attempts to quell the hyperventilation raising in her chest because she doesn't want to wake him. He must be so tired.

But his hand flops to her hip, half-covered by the t-shirt with an air force emblem he yanked over her head before they fell asleep. He mumbles, his face buried in her frizzing hair. "You okay?"

She turns on her back, his hand still cupping her hip, but his mouth falling to the side of her neck, nearer to her ear.

"Bad dream."

Expects him to sigh, to wake, sit up and ask her to have a five hour discussion on what frequents her nightmares, and when she doesn't recount all her personal fears to him, because they're stupid and irrational—even birthday cakes with lit candles make her heartbeat a little faster—he'll complain because he wants to help her, and she doesn't want the help

At least not right now.

His hand vacates from her hip to tug down a pleasantly soft and heavy blanket from the back of his couch, tossing it over then, mainly her as even though he's bare chested, he's still radiating heat. His hand returns, sliding over her hip and her side until resting flat on her chest.

She halts any further movements, but hugs his arm too her, ignoring the pain in her body, and the tears she will never allow to fall. He kisses her cheek, loudly, childishly with a resonating pop, and snuggles back into the side of her. "You can go back to sleep, Princess. I got you."


End file.
